


bruises and scrapes (are nothing but bad weather)

by burglarbilbo



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Relationship, but none of the three had ever experienced friendship before, just some trio fluff, post-movie events, the feeling is friendship, the team has feelings for each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 08:19:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23848066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burglarbilbo/pseuds/burglarbilbo
Summary: after their mission in istanbul, the team recuperates before heading back to UNCLE HQ
Relationships: Illya Kuryakin & Napoleon Solo & Gaby Teller
Comments: 1
Kudos: 42





	bruises and scrapes (are nothing but bad weather)

“That was harder than it needed to be,” Gaby says, taking a look around at the room they’re in. Blood drips from the deep slash on her forearm and seeps into the already dirty hotel carpet. Napoleon, leaning heavily on the door frame, rolls his eyes. Illya just grunts.

They have to get out of here, get patched up, get ready for extraction. 

“How far are we from the safe house?” Napoleon says. He grunts pushing himself to a proper standing position; the fall from the room’s balcony is starting to catch up with him as the adrenaline fades from his veins. 

“Not far,” Illya says. 

Napoleon scoffs. “Last time you said that, Peril, we were 4 miles away on foot. We’ve been ferried all around this damn city —” 

“No, he’s right,” Gaby interrupts. 

“Gaby, you don’t have to just take his side —” 

“Just  _ look _ , Napoleon.” Gaby gestures out the window and sure enough the building that they’ve been assigned to use as their safehouse is just down the road, along the Derince River. 

“Oh,” Napoleon says. 

“Please, Solo, I know my way around Istanbul,” Illya says, harshly helping Napoleon up, placing his arm around his shoulders. Napoleon grits his teeth to prevent from wincing. 

“Let’s go, boys,” Gaby says. She’s limping as she leads the way. 

The walk to the safehouse is both longer and shorter than Napoleon would have liked. It could have been leisurely under different circumstances — the view of the river as the sun sets, outlining the buildings of the ancient city of Istanbul, Napoleon is nothing if not a lover of art — but he’s got bruising on most of his torso, bloody knuckles, a soon-to-be black eye, and he’s being more or less carried by his giant communist coworker, so Napoleon can confirm that he’s had better times in better cities. 

(And he still refuses to acknowledge that he somewhat somehow enjoys being more or less carried by his giant communist coworker, but that is neither here nor there.) 

“It’s beautiful,” Gaby says. She’s popped on her sunglasses, which have only one full lens still in them, to gaze out at the sunset. The orange and golden light makes her glow, makes her hair shine in hues unexpected of brown hair, makes the blue of her tunic look royal. 

Illya stops in his tracks, pulling Napoleon back as he stumbles forward. He squints at the sun, then looks at Gaby, a small smile forming on his face. Napoleon sighs quietly. 

“We can look at it from the safehouse,” Napoleon says. “Plus, you’re still bleeding as we go.” 

“Huh?” Gaby glances down at her arm. It’s still dripping blood, but thankfully much slower than before. It’s started to scab over slightly. Though, looking and thinking about her wound makes it throb like it did when it was fresh. Gaby puts her arm down and continues leading them along. 

The elevator in the building is broken, of course, so getting up to the fifth floor where their safehouse apartment is ends up being even more of a hassle. Napoleon won’t show it, but he’s nearly in tears from the pain in his ribs. Illya sets him down on the sofa in the front room, though he’s shaking from the physical exertion so Napoleon more falls from his arms with a sharp wince. 

Gaby flips on the lights and grabs the first aid from under the bathroom sink while Illya puts on a kettle on the stove for some tea. He also grabs a bottle of gin from a cabinet and takes a long swig. 

“Gin, Cowboy?” 

“Please,” Napoleon wheezes. Illya comes over to the couch and tilts Napoleon’s chin up with the tips of his fingers as he gingerly pours a shot of gin into his mouth. Napoleon closes his eyes and pretends not to enjoy it as much as he enjoyed being carried.  _ “Spasibo.” _

_ “Nyet,”  _ Illya replies, smirking. 

Gaby reemerges from the bathroom, first aid kit in her non-injured hand. “Stitches, please?” 

“Sit,” Napoleon says. “My hands are steady now, I can do it. I just need ice on my back and sides. If you wouldn’t mind, Peril?” Wordlessly, Illya stands and leaves to get what Napoleon hopes is enough ice from the ice box. 

Napoleon is still gently cleaning Gaby’s wound with a cotton pad and hydrogen peroxide when Illya comes back to gently cut away his shirt, his hands uncharacteristically gentle on Napoleon’s bruised and scraped skin. Illya works diligently but with tact; he wraps a bandage around Napoleon’s torso a couple times before tucking the plastic bag of ice in and wrapping the rest of the bandage around Napoleon, tying it tightly but not enough to hurt. 

“Thank you.” Napoleon smiles and Illya nods. 

“I will… make soup…” Illya pats Napoleon on the shoulder awkwardly before leaving the living room for the kitchen. 

“I thought I was the only cook in the group,” Napoleon mutters. He picks up a needle and thread and turns back to Gaby who’s laughing quietly. 

“Bold of you, Napoleon,” she muses. 

As he’s stitching her up, Napoleon is briefly reminded of his time in the war, blood coating his hands as he held onto a dying comrade’s hand. Gaby’s sharp hiss of pain brings him back to reality. He mumbles sorry and continues. As he works, Napoleon wishes there was a record playing, he prefers not to work in silence, but the sounds and smells of cooking in the kitchen are something at least. 

Gaby needs 14 stitches on her arm, it’s the best work Napoleon has done since the war. Gaby thanks him and helps him into the bedroom to the bed to sit propped up on some pillows. “Thank you,” he wheezes. 

“Here, let me clean up your face,” Gaby says. She fetches a warm washcloth and takes Napoleon’s face in her injured hand, carefully tilting his face up so she can clean his nose and upper lip, caked in dried blood. His eye is fully blackened now, in the process of swelling shut and he can only lean back and tilt his head up as Gaby washes his bloody knuckles. 

“Thank you,” Napoleon says. His hand is shaking as Gaby sets it back in his lap; the last of his adrenaline is wearing off fast, his body feels so heavy and the fall he took from the balcony is really starting to wear on him. 

Napoleon drifts off to the feeling of Gaby’s hands in his, light and small, callused and comforting. 

In the kitchen, Illya can’t get the images of Napoleon and Gaby’s injuries out of his head. The way Napoleon’s back was bruised, he at least has bruised ribs if not broken, and his face… Illya watched as the targets beat Napoleon, trying for information — Napoleon smiled and spit blood at them — and Illya could do nothing but watch. 

He hadn’t expected seeing Napoleon beaten in such a way to affect him like this. But here he is, in a safehouse kitchen, unable to concentrate enough to make chicken soup for his comrades. Illya’s hands are shaking even when he balls them into fists, he can’t stop himself from trembling. The mission is over but it’s all he can think of, even the pain of his own injuries can’t silence his mind. 

“Illya?” Gaby’s voice cuts through the red. 

He looks up and sees her standing in the doorway. 

“What’s wrong?” she says. 

He shakes his head uneasily. “Nothing. Nothing is wrong.” 

She walks over to him and takes his hands in hers, she holds his fists in her small hands and looks up at him. “Look at me, Illya. Just look at me.” 

Illya squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. It takes a bit more prying for him to finally look down at her, into her soft brown eyes. He does what he’s trained himself to do — focus on what’s real. Illya wills himself to just focus on his breathing — in...and out — and on Gaby’s hands holding his — the feeling of her palms, callused from working on cars, but soft. 

And then he’s back to normal. The ringing in his ears quiets, the red fades from his vision. 

“There you are,” Gaby says, playfully. She tiptoes up to plant a kiss on his cheek. “Now, do you want any help in here?” 

Illya smiles at her. “No, I can make soup on my own. Thank you.” 

She nods. 

Napoleon comes to when the smell of ginger and garlic and chicken becomes stronger, opens his eyes to see Illya coming in with a tray of three bowls. Gaby scoots to the middle of the bed and hands Napoleon his bowl, pressing a small kiss to his temple. Illya hands Gaby her bowl with a slightly awkward kiss to her hairline and it makes her smile, however awkward it may be. 

Illya settles in on the bed next to them, it’s a tight squeeze with the three of them all cramming onto one queen-sized bed, but it’s cozy and feeling Gaby’s small warm body pressed to his is comforting, Illya is finding. 

Napoleon lets out a sigh as he takes a first bite of the soup. “Peril,” he says, through a mouthful of dumpling. “This is amazing.” 

“Thank you,” Illya says with a curt nod. 

The soup isn’t much of a painkiller, but it warms them up and somehow that is enough for now. 

Illya doesn’t remember falling asleep, but when he comes to, it’s pitch dark outside and the room is lit up by the tiny TV at the far end of the wall. Gaby seems to be entertained with some Turkish movie playing and on her other side, Napoleon is fast asleep. Illya checks his watch, 11:30pm. Extraction should be soon, they need to get to the roof. 

Gaby gets up first, packs the rest of the soup in a thermos she finds in a cabinet. Illya rouses Napoleon, who gasps in pain as Illya helps him stand. The walk to the roof is only one flight of stairs but somehow it feels longer than the walk to the safehouse they took earlier; Illya is weaker than he was before, his limbs still ache and he can only imagine that Napoleon is feeling the same way. 

The helicopter from UNCLE is waiting for them when they get up there, Waverly is there to help Napoleon inside. He gives them each an approving nod and a smile, though looks them all up and down with a rather grim face. 

“You all look rather worse for wear,” Waverly comments. Napoleon, leaning on Illya’s side heavily still, looks up, one eye able to open up and glare at him. 

“Things did not quite go to plan,” Illya says. 

“That’s an understatement,” Gaby says. “We all need real medical attention when we get back to HQ.” 

“Right, of course, that’s…. abundantly obvious,” Waverly says. 

The rest of the ride is spent in silence and eventually the three of them are able to drown out the sound of the helicopter’s rotors and the sky rushing past them and they all fall asleep for the second time that night. 

When they land, they’re at UNCLE’s Paris location, a lovely building overlooking the Seine River. Waverly already has a medical team waiting to whisk the three of them away to the hospital wing. 

“I will see you three much later for a debriefing and discussion of what happens next,” he says. 

“Next?” Napoleon speaks up, pushing himself into a sitting position on the gurney he lies on. “I thought you said this was our last mission. After Rome.” 

“Right, of course. But it doesn’t have to be. Not if any of you want it to be,” Waverly says. 

The silence that follows him feels like a ravine, wide and deep, with something unspoken at its center. “Well,” Napoleon says, quickly. “Let’s just get fixed and then we’ll see.” 

The painkillers they put Napoleon on are strong, thankfully. He leaves the hospital wing the next afternoon with a crutch, bandages around his ribs — three of them were fractured — and a bottle of prescription meds he keeps in his pocket. The clothing they put him in are nothing more than simple scrubs, and Napoleon almost feels naked, he feels out of place in clothing that aren’t tailored to his body. 

No matter, he tells himself, best find Gaby and Peril. 

Those two are in the lobby already, trying to find out which floor Waverly is in. Gaby has fresh bandages around her arm, also in scrubs. Illya is also nearly swaddled in bandages, under his red scrubs (Napoleon smiles at that), and has his hands wrapped as well. They look worse for wear, but still better than they did last night. 

“Waverly is on floor 5,” Gaby says, turning to face Napoleon as he hobbles over. Illya turns to him and nods curtly. 

“You look… well, Cowboy,” he says. 

“Same to you, Peril. Same to you.” Napoleon is slightly irritated that on his crutch he can’t match up to Illya’s height anymore and the Russian is able to look down on him even more. 

“Gaby, you’re looking radiant this afternoon,” Napoleon says, once they’re in the elevator. 

Gaby, with bags under her eyes, stitches on her arm, bruises nearly everywhere, just stares at him. “Thank you… Napoleon.” 

The elevator up to the fifth floor is slower than anticipated; Illya stands in the middle of the small space, trying to make room for Gaby and Napoleon, but he can’t do much. It makes Napoleon smile, watching Illya try and fail to make himself small. 

“So… plans for after all this?” Napoleon chimes in. 

Gaby hums. “I suppose I could… set up a chop shop somewhere here, west of the Iron Curtain…” 

Illya shoves his hands in his scrubs pockets, looking away from Napoleon. He draws in a deep breath and lets it out slowly and though Napoleon can’t see his hands, he knows they’re shaking. 

“Peril…? Illya?” he ventures, quietly. But before Illya gets a chance to say anything the elevator doors are sliding open to the lobby of Waverly’s office. His secretary, a small mousy woman with raven-black hair, ushers them into his office right away. 

“You all look… well,” Waverly says. Gaby takes a seat in the plush green suede chair in front of his desk while the boys take the matching couch at the side of the large room. Most of the walls are glass, save the one used wholly as a bookshelf, and they give Waverly an expansive view of Paris. 

“Quite the office,” Gaby muses. 

“Thank you,” Waverly says, smiling. 

“Let’s just get to what needs to be said,” Napoleon says. He just wants a nice hotel room to recover for a week and do nothing but sleep and eat decadent Parisian sweets and various cheese sauces. Diets be damned, he’s been through hell, he deserves a little leeway. 

“Alright, well, I have your debriefing information right here, including payment in kind, which can be cashed in a currency of your choice down in accounting in the basement.” Waverly passes out Manila folders to all three of them, sits back behind his desk. 

“Then what?” Illya says. 

“Well, you three can do what you like. I only needed you for Istanbul while UNCLE got to its feet, and now we have the funds and resources to train new agents for new missions. So, for all intents and purposes, you three are free to go.” Waverly leans back in his chair, rests his elbows on the arms and laces his fingers together. He looks at them in the way a principal looks at a disgruntled child when he tells them they’re free from punishment. They look back at him in kind; surprised, relieved, unsure. 

“I… have nowhere to go,” Illya says, quietly. 

Napoleon looks at him but he’s staring down at the floor between his feet, hands holding the folder harshly. Something inside Napoleon is urging him to touch Illya, to put a hand on his shoulder or his knee, but Napoleon knows better. 

“Me neither,” Napoleon chimes in, nonchalantly. “So I’ll stay on, if that’s alright with you?” He turns to Illya. “Peril, I assume you were going to say the same thing.” 

Illya furrows his eyebrows at him, turns back to Waverly. “Yes… I was. I will stay with UNCLE.” 

“Then I guess I will too. You can’t send those two idiots out into the field without some backup, can you?” Gaby says. She crosses her arms over her chest delicately, juts her chin out. 

Waverly stares at them in disbelief. “Well… okay then. That was unexpected. I shall let accounting know. No idea when your next mission will be, but I’ll be sure to give you all time to recover.” 

They leave his office as hurriedly as their injured bodies can allow them, rushing through accounting on their way out. (Can’t forget the cash.) Paris is quiet, its day-life falling asleep, while the nightlife waits to come alive. The building isn’t on a main road, so they have to walk along the river a bit to get to one in order to hail a cab. 

“You guys don’t have to follow me, you know,” Napoleon says. 

“Where are you going anyway?” Gaby says. 

“The Ritz.” Napoleon shields his eyes from the sun, as it sets it bathes them in orange and pink. 

“Well, we might as well come. I could use a weekend of room service,” Gaby says. “Right, Illya?” 

“That does sound nice,” Illya says. 

Napoleon sighs. “Fine. But we’re getting separate rooms.” 

“Fine.” 

“Whatever." 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks again for giving me this commission izzy!!! it was a joy to write <3 
> 
> i'm over at larrygayrightstrainor on tumblr and jamsflint on twitter come say hi!


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